


Agnus Dei

by Vivian



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, roughly involving the last couple of episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4754648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivian/pseuds/Vivian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet as night meets day. Dawn and dusk in their shared breaths.<br/>They draw closer to each other. They both speak words, mirror-inverted. A kaleidoscope of motion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agnus Dei

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a re-telling of selected events leading to the finale as well as the finale. I needed to let this out.  
> Many thanks to my bae angelas for betaing and just being wondeful as well as canterville! <3

 

i.

 

_The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. — Milton_

 

Hannibal does not need to close his eyes. The walls rise, the skies break open, an aria, _light_. All other voices drown. He watches with narrowed eyes. One after one they sink into the dust before him. (Doors close. The prison guards bring him breakfast, lunch, and dinner.) He steps over the corpses and shields his eyes from the sun. He is in rage and he is in mourning. (Will has not visited.) Heat like radiance, and from the city walls of Troy Apollo watches with a twinkling eye. Hannibal winks at him. He knows he is not Achilles. He will not fall, struck by an arrow from the golden bow. And Will is not Patroclos.

  
The first year is like rustling leaves swept away by the autumn breeze. He writes and reads and draws. The smell of graphite pressed into his fingers. He draws Alana, Bedelia, Will. He draws Will as John the Baptist. As David with the head of Goliath. Caravaggio and his memories guide his strokes. A lament. (A hymn.)

The second year is time crawling underneath his skin. When he closes his eyes he can hear the harpsichord. Monteverdi. _Ah, taci, taci, ché troppo il sa!_

His fingers do not twitch. Not a sigh falls into the quiet of his cell. He lays back on his bed and turns the ceiling into the storm-coloured skies of Lithuania. The ethers teem with black cherubs. Leathery faces.

The third year is silence resonating. The space between sound and echo.

 

ii.

 

The air is clear. So cold it hurts to breathe. Will follows the dogs into the snow. He has abandoned thought. Has given himself to instinct. He wants to build a house. A new home.

He meets Molly at the vet. A strength to her stance. Diametrical to the dark shadows underneath her eyes. _A loss_. Ah, the heaviness. He keeps the pendulum at bay. And smiles at her. She smiles back.

When spring comes he tells her about the house. They build it together.

A family of strays. Spring comes again. The snowdrops bloom. Walter calls him 'dad' the first time.

When the leaves fall, he tells her about him. It's the last time he says his name.

He drinks his coffee black with no sugar. He teaches Walter fishing. Molly reads T.S. Eliot. _Do I dare disturb the universe?_ He does not. Not today and not tomorrow.

The world is under water. Sound stretched and twisted. There's an itch underneath his skin and it has a name. (He dreams of him. Sweetly. Violence waiting as a guest at the dinner table.)

More snow this year. When he opens the door to the veranda the plastic bottles scrunch from the cold. A Mercedes rolls to a stop in the drive in. Jack steps out.

He's still under water. Rushing to the surface. His lungs burn.

He knows as well as Jack what this visit means. He says yes. Emersion.

 

iii.

 

It's not the quiet of his stream. It's the ocean. Will breaks to light. Salt on his tongue. A maelstrom turning like a screw into the sky. He breathes in. He wakes from the barking of his dogs.

The smell of coffee drifts up from downstairs. After breakfast Will kisses Molly and Walter goodbye. He pets the dogs. Then he leaves for Baltimore.

 

iv.

 

The itch gets stronger. Will can feel it underneath his skin. Something pointy wants to break through.

 

v.

 

The time has come to create. From dust and clay. Hannibal will make more than a man. A creature magnificent. Terrible. _Usable._

 

vi.

 

(They meet as night meets day. Dawn and dusk in their shared breaths.

They draw closer to each other. They both speak words, mirror-inverted. A kaleidoscope of motion.)

 

v.

 

The hotel room smells of disinfectant. The dog doesn't like it. Will lays on the bed. Eyes wide open. There's a buzzing in the air. Like insect wings. He has to find out how the victims are chosen. How do I choose them?

He can hear the quiet, feathery steps of nightmares approaching. Familiar.

As if he had been holding a breath. Brain dizzy with the lack of oxygen. Now everything clears.

He tries not to think of him. His name is noise and chaos. Intimate. Scarring. _Tender._

He thinks of Molly instead. Of Walter. The dogs. Home.

His ready-made family. A sneer splits the night in half. He's not sure if it's his or _his_. Both. Neither. Blood seeps into the clouds. Soft morning light on the window pane. Such heaviness upon his chest. Will knows he is manipulating him. And he probably knows who the dragon is, yet does not tell him.

(When he is with him they are in the chapel. Dust dancing in the light. Death underneath his feet.)

 

vi.

 

Jack tells him. The dragon in his home. But Molly and Walter are safe.

Will feels a sense of quiet.

Rage, like an old friend, knocks on his door. Steps inside. He feels nearly powerful. He doesn't want to. (He hasn't missed this. It's not part of him.) He tells Molly he hates it. She calls Walter _her_ son.

 

Then Will sees him. And he knows. Knows everything.

Will touches the glass. (Kyrie.)

 

vii.

 

Hannibal steps closer to the glass. He can see Will's breath on it. Like mercy.

 

viii.

 

Jack orchestrates a deception. With Alana and Frederick Chilton, and with Freddie Lounds. They spin lies. Vicious, obscene. Tinder. Then Freddie takes their photograph. Will puts his hand on Dr Chilton's shoulder.

(His skin is broken. The itch stops. He smiles. Gloria.)

 

ix.

 

Agony, anticipation, anger. Will cannot tell the difference anymore.

Bedelia is sharp and cold in the lights of the blue hour. He is bitter and he knows it. She knows it, too.

They speak of him. (His name is an intercession.)

He does not want it to be. There's no other way. He tries to think of Molly and Walter. They die before him every night. Mirror-shards in their eyes and mouths, blood on his hands. He kills them every night.

Bedelia speaks of his scars. Of Hannibal's excitement about it. He asks her why. She answers with a counter question. He asks,

_Is Hannibal in love with me?_

 

Three years ago, after Muskrat Farm. In the snow. How the sirens sang.

 

The first time he visited him in jail. A hitch to his breath. And the wicked coil of his lips. The hunger in his eyes. (Eucharist.)

 

x.

 

Hannibal's eyelashes flutter close. The aria rises. He can see Will striding with a wrath golden as the morning sun. He feeds on himself. A creature of wax and flame. Moulding himself into something lethal. Something beautiful. And Hannibal is the wick.

Their chapel is full of light. (It is night. He is alone in his cell.) Hannibal strides over to Will and says,

_Milton depicted Jesus and Lucifer as brothers._

_—Is that what we are?_

_We are many things to each other._

Will turns towards him, an aureola behind his head, leaving his face to shadow.

 _—Holy,_ Will whispers.

_Yes._

 

The moment Alana steps into the room and tells him about the deal he knows. It is fate, extending a hand. And as always, Hannibal takes it.

 

xi.

 

The night before Will dreams of the swamps. Of heat. The dense thickness of the forests. The susurrus of the flies. Trees old, and half drowned. Creatures living in the muddy waters, hungry, waiting, ancient. The stag walks before him, a patch of night. The forest grows thicker, darkness falls and the stag melts into it. He cannot see it anymore.

(Lead me not into temptation.)

 

The world is left to their heartbeats. They look at each other as Hannibal sits inside his cage, mask fastened. Silence strips the world of sound.

 

The dragon takes their bait.

The smell of fresh blood. He slides into the car, Hannibal drives.

 

xii.

  
The Atlantic stretches before their eyes, vast and consuming. The skies hang heavily, winds whispering between cloud and water.

The house has been kept by someone. Will does not care now. While Hannibal puts on a piano sonata, Will stands before the large windows. Outside the moon beckons him near. A cold allure to its darkened half.

The dragon comes through an explosion of glass. Shards scatter over the floor. Will stays motionless. Hannibal down. Blood seeping through his shirt. Waves crashing against the bluff.

When Will moves, he does not think. He _becomes_.

The pain is electrifying. He acts on instinct. An imperative in his flesh. He stabs, slashes, his eyes meet Hannibal's again, again. They move like beasts move. Hunting. His breathing heavy. The dragon is strong and terrible, but then—their gazes meet—a heartbeat—they lunge forward—Hannibal jumps onto his back, Will skewers the knife into his belly and guts him, blood gushing out, the dragon roars but only silence fills his ears, the waves, the waves. And the dragon is slain.

 

(Communion.)

 

The moonlight steals away all hues. He reaches for Hannibal's hand.

 

xiii.

 

Hannibal can see it in Will’s eyes, how they are filled with the night sky. Now Will truly understands. Will says,

_—It's beautiful._

They touch. Redemption. Warm, slick blackness between them. The steel-taste of copper. Will's cheek against his chest. His fingers clutching Will’s shirt. Breathless. Around them the void between worlds, eldest night and chaos. Closer. Will moves them.

 

They fall.

 

Hannibal closes his eyes. Their chapel collapses.

 

(Amen.)

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! This sort of just happened, this TV show means so fucking much to me for 3 years now. 
> 
> Also please continue to twitter at @hulu, @hulu_support, @yahoo, @yahoo_screen, @netflix, @netflixhelps, @Starz_Channel and @skyuk.
> 
> Also "edest night and chaos" I shamelessly stole from Milton.
> 
> Cry with me about Hannibal on [tumblr](http://lieutenant-mairon.tumblr.com) if you like.  
> 


End file.
